Robert Smith has been in the news quite a bit recently, but it’s not all fanfare for the new album, ’4:13 Dream’.
First there was a blow up on a blog, calling upon fans to resist buying the EP for the new album, entitled ‘Hypnogogic States’. Apparently the record company execs priced the singles at a lower rate than the EP. The EP contains a ‘special’ remix of a track. So, only if one were to purchase the full EP, one got the bonus track.
Fat Bob wrote in a letter to head honcho of said record company:
“I FUCKING DESPAIR
AGAIN
HYPNAGOGIC STATES EP IS NOW UP ON UK ITUNES…
5 TRACKS FOR £7.99?
FOR FUCKS SAKE!
AND THE PACKAGE IS COMPLETEY MISSING THE EXTRA BONUS TRACK (65DOS ALT REMIX OF “THE ONLY ONE”)
SO
YOU CAN BUY THE FOUR REMIXES BY 30STM/AFI/MCR/FOB INDIVIDUALLY FOR 79P EACH…
BUT YOU ONLY GET THE 65DOS “EXPLODING HEAD SYNDROME” REMIX OF ALL FOUR SINGLES IF YOU PAY £7.99 FOR “THE ALBUM”…
IE YOU ARE BEING ASKED TO PAY £4.83 FOR THE 65DOS REMIX… !!!
WHO THE FUCK IS GOING TO PAY THIS AND NOT FEEL TOTALLY RIPPED OFF?
IT’S NOT A FUCKING ALBUM!
IT’S A 5 TRACK EP
AND YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO GET AN EXTRA FREE TRACK (THE 65DOS REMIX OF “THE ONLY ONE”) IF YOU BUY IT AS A 5 TRACK EP
AND ITS SUPPOSED TO COST LESS IF YOU BUY IT AS A 5 TRACK EP THAN IF YOU BUY THE 5 TRACKS INDIVIDUALLY…
THAT IS WHAT WAS AGREED
THIS IS SO TOTALLY WRONG
I REALLY DO FUCKING DESPAIR
WHY IS IT SO INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT TO GET ANYTHING DONE RIGHT?
PLEASE FIX THIS”
(apparently, he likes caps).
Also, he recently publicly apologized for selling the rights to certain songs to advertising agencies. He licensed two songs to be used in commercials, ‘In-Between Days” and “Pictures of You (to HP in the US). The songs were licensed to pay for buying control of the Cure’s back-catalog.
The songs appear in the commercials as instrumental, but Smith is still apparently upset at having to use the music in such a ‘commercial’ way.
“I’m so against music in adverts, it fucking killed me even agreeing to that, but it was the only way. The money generated from those adverts went into buying me control on our back catalogue, otherwise it would have been like mortgaging the band.”
I really don’t know anything about the big bad ‘Music Industry’. I’m not sure many of us do, being so entrenched in genre; everyone is mostly independant. It seems strange that someone like Robert Smith would have knock-down and drag-out fight with music execs.
In some respects it makes me kind of chuckle, if he can fight MegaBarbara I’m sure he’s not going to let some damn record industry executive stop him. I guess in the end it’s all up to Robert Smith who the Cure is, and he’s going to control that as long as he can. I can respect that completely.
’4:13 Dream’ was supposed to be released on Oct 13, but was pushed back to the 28th because of tuesday release dates in the US. It was also comceptually a double album, but the label decided against it. The second half of the album is to be released six months from now, and be the ‘darker’ of the two.
